Final answer:
Nucleotides are monomers composed of a nitrogenous base, a pentose sugar, and a phosphate group, which are the building blocks of DNA and RNA, the carriers of genetic information.
Step-by-step explanation:
Nucleotides consist of individual pieces known as monomers. These are the basic building blocks of nucleic acids like DNA and RNA. Each nucleotide is comprised of three components: a nitrogenous base, a pentose sugar, and a phosphate group.
Nucleotides are the fundamental units that make up the DNA and RNA polymers, which are essential for storing and transferring genetic information. In DNA, these consist of adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine as their bases, while RNA includes uracil instead of thymine. The sugar component is a pentose sugar; deoxyribose in DNA and ribose in RNA. The combination of these three components forms a monomer that can connect to other nucleotides to create the long chains — polynucleotides — which constitute the strands of DNA and RNA.